Friday 17 April 2009 19.01 EDT
First published on Friday 17 April 2009 19.01 EDT

The music, film and entertainment industries were celebrating a rare victory over internet copyright pirates last night after a Swedish court handed down prison sentences and hefty fines to four men behind the world's most notorious filesharing website.

In what is being described as a landmark verdict, the quartet in charge of The Pirate Bay - which offers thousands of movies, TV shows and tracks of music for download - were found guilty of helping to illegally distribute copyrighted material and sentenced to a year in prison and fines totalling £2.4m.

The ruling by a judge in Stockholm marks the culmination of a two-year case brought by a consortium of media and entertainment companies, led by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

"This is good news for everyone - in Sweden and internationally - who is making a living or a business from creative activity and who needs to know their rights will protected by law," said John Kennedy, the chairman of the IFPI. "It would have been very difficult to put on a brave face if we had lost, but this verdict sends a strong educational and deterrent message."

The defendants, who have cultivated an image of rebellious outsiders, reacted acidly to the news, however, calling the verdict "bullshit", promising to appeal and signalling that they would not shut the site down.

"Nothing will happen to TPB, us personally or filesharing whatsoever," said Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, one of the site's founders, on Twitter. "This is just a theatre for the media."

Since it first launched in 2003, The Pirate Bay has become the poster child for illegal downloading, used by millions of people to get copies of the latest movies, TV shows and music releases.

Although the site had been raided by police on several occasions, its creators argued that they were not acting illegally under Sweden's intepretation of copyright law.

They also taunted the authorities by promoting high-profile downloads of new Hollywood films and responding to legal threats by posting insults online.

In one exchange with DreamWorks - the film studio behind hits including Gladiator and Shrek - The Pirate Bay lashed out with verbal abuse and accusations of US imperialism. "Sweden is not a state in the United States of America ... US law does not apply here," they said.

"It is the opinion of us and our lawyers that you are morons and that you should sodomise yourself with retractable batons."

Lawyers representing the four men had maintained that The Pirate Bay was essentially no different from Google, merely acting as a search engine of online content.

It does not host pirated files itself, but tracks the location of copyrighted files and provides links to chunks of material known as torrents hosted elsewhere on the internet. As such, it does not directly infringe copyright, lawyers argued.

That contention was partially successful, with prosecutors forced to drop half of their charges against the men early in the trial.

However, the quartet's championing of piracy and their antagonistic attitude counted against them as the court found them guilty on 33 counts of making files accessible for illegal sharing, and ordered that compensation be divided between a consortium including Sony BMG, Universal, MGM and 20th Century Fox.

Three of the men found guilty yesterday - Kolmisoppi, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg - were involved in the day-to-day operation of the website. The fourth, Carl Lundstrom, a former Swedish food magnate turned extreme rightwing politician, provided funds that helped keep it running.

Industry experts warned that the victory is unlikely to have much impact on filesharing, with millions of people continuing to use The Pirate Bay and other services to download files illegally.

Mark Mulligan, a digital music analyst and vice-president of research at Forrester Research, said the result was a fillip for the entertainment business - but that its effect would be temporary at best.

"It's important for the industry, and they have to do it or they're giving filesharing the go-ahead - but they're not going to create a significant downturn in traffic," he told the Guardian.

"In the past where they could have a substantive effect on an illegal service, all it did was push the proliferation of alternatives ... there's every chance that illegal downloading will be even more popular next year."

The decision further exposed the growing rift between the creative industries and technologically savvy members of the public, as artists widely welcomed the decision but thousands of web-users derided the court's judgment and said they would continue downloading.

"No one can stop us, that sentence will not be executed," said one user on Twitter. "Obviously a stitch-up," said another.

Talking after the verdict, a pale and tired-looking Kolmisoppi insisted he was "OK" and vowed to appeal the case.

"We lost, but in the next level we will win," he said. "Maybe we're playing with matches, but I think it's more fair when one person decides the outcome."